


finally home

by andnowforyaya



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Established Relationship, Family Feels, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 21:40:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15128378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: Changkyun and Kihyun visit Kihyun's parents in Atlanta.





	finally home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naerys123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naerys123/gifts).



Changkyun fiddled with the thick seatbelt strap against his chest and across his lap, watching the houses outside the window get bigger and bigger with every street corner they turned. The front yards grew and grew and became greener and more ornate, as did the front gates closing off private driveways. He mumbled with his lips near the glass of the window, “Your family’s so rich,” and Kihyun laughed.

“We’re not rich,” Kihyun said, his voice clear and crisp over the pop music playing quietly on the radio. Kihyun’s voice always reminded Changkyun of hot honey. Sweet but with a bite. “Everyone always says that because we have to pass by all these mansions. But our house looks nothing like these. Not saying we’re poor, either, but. I mean, you’ll see.”

They’d been on the road now for a little over 6 hours, driving down from North Carolina to visit Kihyun’s family in Atlanta. Changkyun had an older brother going to grad school in Atlanta, so he’d made the trip before, but always by himself. This was the first time he and Kihyun were making the trip together. Changkyun’s nose itched and his fingers dug into the crosshatched, unyielding fabric of the seatbelt again. He felt the Burger King meal they’d decided to eat for a quick lunch crawling back up his esophagus, greasy and sticky, and instantly his hand darted to push the button in the car door to make the window on his side go down. Hot, stifling Atlanta air came in, displacing the air conditioning.

Kihyun tutted but didn’t force the window back up, even though he’d lectured Changkyun many times already about wasting air conditioning like that. Instead, he reached out with one hand, keeping the other one on the wheel, and searched around Changkyun’s lap until he could clasp their fingers together. He chanced a look at Changkyun, who met his brief gaze. “Relax,” Kihyun said, reading Changkyun better than he could read himself. “They’re _so_ excited to meet you. They’ll _love_ you.”

“You don’t know that,” Changkyun said sulkily, wondering if his face was flushed or completely pale from that quiet but intense moment of panic-induced nausea. He squeezed Kihyun’s fingers and resisted the urge to lean over and kiss Kihyun on the cheek because that would distract him from driving. Instead, he lifted Kihyun’s hand to his face, brushing his lips over Kihyun’s knuckles.

“I _do_ know,” Kihyun said. “Because _I_ love you, _they’ll_ love you. Trust me.”

Kihyun's utter faith was admirable, but didn’t work like that in Changkyun’s world, but now wasn’t the time to mention it. Changkyun just nodded and sighed and sank deeper into the passenger seat, wrapping both of his hands around Kihyun’s and hoping his boyfriend was right. 

. 

They pulled into the driveway of Kihyun’s family home. Kihyun was right -- it wasn’t a mansion, but it surely wasn’t a small house, either. The house was two floors and the wood paneling on the outside was a pleasant pale yellow color. The shutters on the windows were white, and there was a small porch out front with room enough for a rocking chair. The front yard was well-kept and green, with a little flower bed in front of the porch and around the sides of the house. Kihyun stopped the car in front of the garage, braked, and shut off the engine. He turned to Changkyun and smiled, nervousness making his eyes shine.

“What do you think?” he asked.

Changkyun grinned back at him. “It’s nice. It’s sunny. Like you.”

“Cheese,” Kihyun stated, used to Changkyun’s outrageous flirting and admiration enough so that it didn’t fluster him to bits anymore when Changkyun said stuff like that. But still, he blushed. Changkyun loved that he could still make Kihyun blush. “You ready to go in?”

Changkyun unbuckled his seat belt and leaned over and kissed Kihyun on the cheek. The older boy’s slight gasp of surprise quickly turned into a chuckle as he turned and caught the next kiss with his lips. Kihyun’s eyelashes were fluttering when they pulled away from each other.

“What was that for?” Kihyun asked breathlessly.

“I just love you,” Changkyun said. “And I’m nervous but excited to meet your family.”

“I love you, too,” Kihyun said softly. He leaned in close again, but before anything else could happen, the front door of the house flew open so hard the door bounced against the wall and nearly closed again. Out barreled an older woman with shoulder-length sleek black hair and a huge grin on her face. She was wearing a light blue shirt and white pants.

“Kihyunnie!” she shrilled, waving and holding out her arms as she approached the car.

“And this is my mom,” Kihyun said under his breath, unbuckling his own seat belt and moving to open the car door.

“I know your mom,” Changkyun said. He’d met her a few times when Kihyun’s family had come to visit him in North Carolina in college, but the meetings had never been substantial. And he’d never met her as Kihyun’s boyfriend.

Kihyun was already out of the car, hugging his mother and laughing. “You didn’t have to run out here,” he was saying. “No, no, leave the bags. We don’t have much--”

But his mother was already shouting back behind her towards the house, “Yah! Dear! Come help your son with the bags!”

A man came out of the door and Changkyun felt his body go tense. He’d never had a bad experience with Kihyun’s father but fathers in general kind of put his body on high alert. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm his racing heart. This was Kihyun, and his family, and everything was going to be fine. He got out of the car, too, just as Kihyun’s dad was coming around the hood so that he could open the trunk of the sedan.

“Mr. Yoo, I got it,” Changkyun said, awkwardly reaching forward for one of the duffels that Kihyun’s father had taken from the trunk.

“You kids had a long drive,” Mr. Yoo said, nodding towards the house. “Why don’t you go inside and get something to drink and eat? My wife spent all morning making Kihyun’s favorite kimbap and you have to eat some of it...if you don’t, we’ll be buried in a mountain of it!” He laughed at his own joke as he took the other bag out of the trunk. Kihyun’s father was of average height, a bit round about the belly, and wearing a polo, shorts, and black-framed glasses that made him look a kind of hip. A cool dad. Changkyun admired him for a moment, thinking that this is what Kihyun would probably look like in 20 years. Not bad. “Go on in!” Mr. Yoo all but yelled cheerfully at Changkyun, which made the boy startle like a deer and turn around abruptly.

Luckily, Kihyun was there to take his hand and bring him inside. “Let them fuss,” Kihyun said, referring to his parents and the bags. “It’s what they love to do most. Plus, you _have_ to try my mom’s kimbap.”

.

What was great about Kihyun’s parents was that they mostly left Changkyun and Kihyun alone for the next few hours as they settled in. They snacked on kimbap in the kitchen, Kihyun showed Changkyun up to his room and they unpacked a little, and then they found themselves curled up together on Kihyun’s little twin-sized bed because Kihyun had kept yawning and rubbing his eyes with his little balled-up fists and Changkyun had felt the need to cuddle up and coddle him.

“It’s the same bed I’ve had since middle school,” Kihyun said somewhat apologetically, but the narrow space just meant that they had to squeeze tight against each other on the mattress, and Changkyun wasn’t complaining. He used Kihyun’s chest like a pillow and draped his arm across Kihyun’s stomach.

“Are the stars on the ceiling from middle school, too?” Changkyun asked, gaze drifting upward to where there were little plastic glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling in patterns that were probably supposed to resemble the constellations.

“I had a space phase,” Kihyun explained. His voice was gravelly and soft from being tired, and it made Changkyun’s heart skip around in his chest. On Kihyun’s bedroom walls were old posters of bands, a couple of black and white photography prints, and pictures of childhood friends. Changkyun recognized Minhyuk in a few of the photos.

He trailed his fingers across Kihyun’s belly over his shirt, playing in the grooves he could feel of Kihyun’s ribs. “You were a little nerd,” Changkyun teased, drawing himself up to kiss Kihyun’s sharp jawline.

“Kyunnie,” Kihyun mumbled, “You’re literally a mechanical engineering major.”

“Nerd,” Changkyun insisted, kissing him higher, on the cheek, on the lips. He propped himself up on his forearms over Kihyun’s chest and let himself luxuriate in the feeling of Kihyun’s lips against his. They were so soft, feather-like, and Kihyun somehow always tasted sweet no matter what he’d been eating.

He felt Kihyun’s arms circle his waist and pull, until he was pressed flush against Kihyun’s body, and he gasped against Kihyun’s mouth. “You had a long drive,” Changkyun said softly, purposefully making his voice low and shadowy as he slowly ground his hips against Kihyun. “You must be tired.”

“Mmhm,” Kihyun managed a little squeakily, his hips jumping once at the friction, his mouth falling open. Changkyun bit at Kihyun’s lush bottom lip and pulled slightly with his teeth while shifting himself higher up on Kihyun’s body, straddling him now. He could feel the sharp bones of Kihyun’s hips digging in the backs of his thighs. It felt strangely illicit, making out on Kihyun’s childhood bed.

But then someone was stomping down the hallway to Kihyun’s room. Hastily and with an aborted gasp, Changkyun pulled away from Kihyun and rolled off of his body, taking one of Kihyun’s stuffed animals on the bed and throwing it over his crotch, just as the door flew open. Kihyun’s mother’s head popped into view behind the door. “What do you want for dinner?” she asked brightly, blinking at the boys in front of her. Then she gasped with realization, and Changkyun felt his ears and nose and cheeks burn.

Kihyun stood up hastily and charged toward the door, forcing it shut as his mother spluttered behind it. “It’s okay, Kihyunnie!” she was saying. “Just -- are you being safe? Do you need anything?”

Changkyun wanted to shrink to the size of the stuffed animal and hide under the covers.

“I need you to leave!” Kihyun screamed. “I am an adult! And the door was closed!”

The door shut with a loud click and Changkyun could hear Kihyun’s mom behind it still insisting she wasn’t bothered by what she saw.

“Please knock next time,” Kihyun said through the door. After another a minute or so, his mom finally responded, “Okay, honey. But think about dinner,” and left.

Silence pervaded. Kihyun stood facing the door, his back to Changkyun, but the younger boy could see how the whole back of his neck was red from embarrassment, how his shoulders were a tense, rigid line, his hands curled into tight fists. Then Changkyun looked down at the stuffed animal he was still holding over his crotch. It was a fluffy hamster. He burst out laughing.

Encouraged by Changkyun’s laughter, Kihyun slowly turned around with a sheepish smile on his face. “Sorry,” he said, padding back to the bed and crawling into the space Changkyun was making between his arms. “She means well, I promise.”

“I can see that,” Changkyun said, the laughter bubbling up from his chest still. “Do you think if I ask, she’ll go out and buy us condoms? Magnum-sized, obviously.”

Kihyun smacked Changkyun on the arm but he was grinning, and then he was wrapping his arms around Changkyun’s waist again and pulling him down against him on the bed. He squeezed, and Changkyun wrapped his arms around Kihyun and squeezed back.

“I’m not asking my mom to buy you giant-sized condoms for your cute, regular-sized dick,” Kihyun said.

.

Kihyun fell asleep against him, tired out from all the driving that morning, his breath tickling Changkyun’s neck, and Changkyun watched his eyelashes flutter against the tops of his cheekbones, pressed the lightest of kisses to the tip of Kihyun’s nose and to his forehead, careful not to wake him. He stayed like that with Kihyun until the sun streaming in through the blinds was the warm gold of the late afternoon, and his legs were starting to tingle from lack of blood flow. With a sigh, Changkyun rolled away from the other boy and slowly crawled out of bed. He stood and Kihyun shifted in his sleep but didn’t wake. On a whim, Changkyun took the hamster plushie he was still holding and put it in Kihyun’s arms instead. He grinned delightedly when Kihyun immediately latched his arms around the toy and curled his body around it with a pleased little mewl like a kitten.

“I’m dating the cutest boy in the world,” Changkyun said aloud, knowing no one else could hear. It didn’t matter. In moments like these, he felt like the luckiest boy on earth and needed it to be announced.

His legs tingled, still, and he knew he needed to move around a bit. First, the bathroom, and then maybe he’d head downstairs to watch some TV if Kihyun’s parents weren’t already in the living room. He thought he remembered Kihyun saying something about his parents needing to do something at the church and run errands before dinner.

He padded downstairs and peaked into the living room. No sign of Kihyun’s parents. The couch was calling out to him. He made himself comfortable and turned on the TV, settling on some food-related cooking show by habit. Kihyun seemed to love every single cooking show, and whenever Changkyun visited Kihyun at his dorm the other boy always seemed to be playing a food-related show on his laptop in the background. Changkyun didn’t used to watch so many cooking shows, but found he didn’t mind them as they were easy to get into and to watch mindlessly for hours on end.

This was the state he was in when the sound of keys jingling at the front door reached his ears. The front door opened and Kihyun’s mother breezed in, carrying a few plastic grocery bags overflowing with fresh produce. Her husband was close behind, laden down with a few bags also. Changkyun jumped up at once and went to them, offering to help.

“You’re so sweet,” Kihyun’s mother said, smiling brightly at him and winking. Changkyun could see where Kihyun got his dimples from. “Follow me to the kitchen and help me unload?”

“Sure, Mrs. Yoo.” Changkyun followed her into the big, spacious kitchen, where she was arranging all the plastic bags onto the center island. He wondered if, growing up, this had been Kihyun’s favorite room in the house. It was bright and seemed to suck in light from the sun, clean and warm.

“You can put the vegetables away in the second drawer in the fridge,” Mrs. Yoo instructed, and Changkyun did as he was told, eager to help and feel useful. Kihyun’s mother spoke to him casually and openly, like she’d already accepted him into the family.

Maybe she had. The thought made Changkyun feel light and hopeful and just a little bit giddy.

“Look at you, skipping around,” she commented. “I can see why my son likes you.”

Changkyun flushed, stuffing the last of the vegetables into the drawer in the fridge and straightening. “You can?”

She said, “Oh, yes. The way he talks about you...it’s sweet. I’m happy there’s someone in his life he can talk about like that. Does that make sense?”

Changkyun swallowed around a hard lump in his throat. “It does,” he said, and Mrs. Yoo looked up at him sharply.

“Oh, sweetie,” she said, and Changkyun didn’t know why she looked sympathetic until he realized his eyes were tearing up and that the tip of his nose was probably red. “Are you okay?”

He inhaled and exhaled forcefully, willing the heavy, saturated feeling in his chest to go away. “I’m okay, thank you,” he said. “I just -- I’m happy to be here.”

She smiled. “I’m happy you’re here, too.”

.

“This is real, right?”

“Hm?” Kihyun peered up at Changkyun from under his lashes. They were in Kihyun’s bed again, facing each other as sleep pulled at them gently. Changkyun’s hair was still a little wet from his shower and Kihyun had told him he’d get a headache sleeping like that, but Changkyun had laid down anyway and fit his arms around Kihyun’s body and then found he couldn’t move away from him.

“This, your family, you?”

“Of course it’s real, silly,” Kihyun scoffed, playfully slapping Changkyun’s chest. “Stop being dramatic.”

“I just never thought it could feel like this,” Changkyun said quietly. He was overwhelmed, overwhelming himself, really, thinking about the past few hours in the Yoo household. "I never dared to think."

Over dinner -- a spicy stew that was one of Kihyun’s favorites, paired with rice and over half a dozen side dishes -- his parents had asked about college and what clubs they were both a part of, and when Kihyun talked about musical theater and the LGBTQA+ affinity groups he was involved in, no one batted an eye. Kihyun’s father even asked about any upcoming events where Kihyun’s parents might be able to drive up to attend and support. Changkyun talked about the radio and music production, and was met with real, genuine interest.

“Your parents are so cool,” he finished lamely, holding Kihyun tighter.

Kihyun sighed and brought his hand up to the nape of Changkyun’s neck, where his fingers began to play with the short hairs there. “They’re really supportive. They care. They...researched and learned and try their best. You know what they said when I came out to them?”

“What?”

“They said--” Kihyun laughed softly “--they said, ‘Is Minhyuk your boyfriend?’”

Changkyun laughed, too. Anyone who knew Minhyuk and Kihyun both knew their relationship ran deep and true but never crossed over into the romantic side of things.

“I was so mad and embarrassed. I didn’t talk to them for a week,” Kihyun continued, still laughing softly. “But then they apologized, and I apologized, and we’ve just been...doing this together, now. They see me, and accept me.”

“They love you.”

“Yeah.” Kihyun sighed again, and then he kissed Changkyun once on the lips, a chaste, innocent kiss that left Changkyun dazed and yearning for more. “I love you, baby,” Kihyun said. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” Changkyun whispered honestly, because mostly he was. Mostly, he just didn’t know what to do with this feeling bubbling up inside of him. It was somewhat foreign, and not altogether unwelcome.

Kihyun could read him like an open book. He inched forward even closer, so close that their lips grazed each other with every breath. He kissed him again. “I see you,” Kihyun said. “And I accept you, and I love you.”

The feeling in Changkyun’s chest increased tenfold, and he realized what it was. He felt safe, and more than that, he felt like he’d finally come home.

.

**Author's Note:**

> the prompt: "Everything is up to you, but what I'd like included is a positive and uplifting parent/child relationship. Supportive parents who accept their child as they are and love them unconditionally."
> 
> thanks for reading because literally nothing happened! i am sorry. comments/kudos are appreciated.


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